Neuroreport
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We tested whether a conditioned emotional stimulus could facilitate visual processing when presented subliminally. Participants received Pavlovian conditioning in which a fearful expression (conditioned stimulus) was paired with electric finger shock (unconditioned stimulus). ⋯ Paralleling the brain activity, reaction times to the conditioned stimulus faces were also facilitated. These results suggest that conditioned threat stimuli can facilitate perceptual processing even when they are processed unconsciously.
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Changes in the visual environment might be detected automatically. This function is provided by the sensory systems and showed, for instance, by the pop-out phenomenon. ⋯ In this study, the deviating stimulus feature was embedded in a task-relevant object presented in the focus of attention. With this, visual mismatch negativity was observable only with position deviants presented in the upper visual half field but not by lower half field presentation or color deviants.